


If Only You Knew My Dear How I Live My Life In Fear

by chewysugar



Series: You Are The Diamonds [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring John Winchester, Drabble, Fear, Gen, Guilt, Inspired by Music, John Winchester Not Being an Asshole, Marina and the Diamonds, POV John Winchester, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Dean Winchester, Sleeping Sam Winchester, Watching Someone Sleep, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 04:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Another sleepless night finds John Winchester wrestling with demons that will never leave him.





	If Only You Knew My Dear How I Live My Life In Fear

**Author's Note:**

> It's remarkable how my perspective of John has changed over the years. Granted, the show hasn't exactly tried to make him anything other than a bastard, so there's that...
> 
> Lyrics from the song "State of Dreaming."

Like tiny knives, the dread comes back. It stabs John behind the eyes, slices through his brain. He should be beyond this now, especially after all the things he’s seen and done. But these little monsters find ways to hit him where it hurts the most.

If it isn’t visions of his brave boys bloodied and dying, it’s his boys turning on him. Were he an ordinary parent, he could just fight back against such thoughts.

Unfortunately, John Winchester is the opposite of conventional. He can’t just tell himself that he’s being ridiculous, or that Sam and Dean are too good to be lost to the same things that take other kids.

Anything could choose to snatch them away. Sam could run off. God knows he’s only threatened it a million times. And as much as John doesn’t want that to happen, he can’t blame his youngest son.

If only the terror would grip him during the day.

But no. It has to wait until he’s trying to relax.

His skin flushed from being awake for hours, John kicks the covers off. In bare feet he marches away from the uncomfortable hide-a-bed to the kitchenette. He can hear his boys breathing deep and even in the only room the motel had for them.

A furious rhythm pounds against his ribs. He wants to scream, to cry. But if the boys wake up and see their stoic—bordering on bastard—father anything other than composed, then he’ll have only one of two choices: fess up, or lie. He’ll take the latter. He can’t let them know that he’s frightened almost twenty-four seven.

So he gets as good of a grip on himself as he can. A broad, calloused hand wipes his face. He splashes some cold water over his eyes, and then, because the fear still lingers, he walks quietly to the solitary bedroom.

They’re both sprawled out in a tangle of growing limbs. Dean’s cares, the ones he tries so hard not to show, are masked by the peace of slumber. John would say that his oldest son looks a lot like him, only he’s got that gentleness that Mary had. And Sammy, sleeping on his side...his hair is a shaggy muss over his forehead. Even in sleep he looks perpetually unimpressed, his eyebrows creased. But he’s sleeping peacefully. That’s all that John can ask for.

It’ll be a miracle of nothing kills them. It’ll be even more of a miracle if they make it through this as a whole family.

John’s chin quivers. He blinks the tears back, and looks away from his boys—two precious gifts he isn’t at all worthy of.

It’s no good. He can’t fight the dread anymore. It curdles in his guts, and weighs on his shoulders. He can never let them see—can never let his fear show. He’ll bury it, as he always does, under the booze and bullets. It’s better to be resented then to show any weakness, especially in light of all that they fight against.


End file.
